Dutch planned acquisition of capital ships

There's a common saying on the internet - that the Dutch caused the start of both world wars by trying to order capital ships.

Today I would like to highlight 2 relatively unknown stories relavant in some form. I think it's safe to say most people know about the Battleship that were designed and proposed before World War One - as well as the Battlecruisers right before the German invasion. But there's 2 more cases.

The first happens before World War Two starts, namely before the Phoney War. In April 1939 minister Colijn contacted the 'British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary' Sir George Nevile Maltby Bland for the acquisition of 3 Battleships, which he could pay for in hard cash. Colijn judged the construction of Battleships too slow and wanted them as soon as possible. No ships in particular were mentioned, but it is speculated he thought of the R-class battleships or the Queen-Elizabeth class. The admiralty rejected the offer on 26th June 1939.

Another case happened during the war, but before the Japan entered. In 1940 A.J. Bussemaker and engineer H. Egeter proposed an emergency fleet plan that consisted of acquiring the US Battleships New York and Texas. Excluding some other measures to increase personell for the navy, they proposal included the removal of one twin turret from each ship and eight of the 12,7cm cannons. This would reduce the required crew complement from 1250 to 1000 men. The main battery turrets could be used to cover the Westervaarwater (Soerabaja) and the secondaries could cover a 'drastic need' of 12,7cm ordnance.

Sources:
Loderichs, Britse slagschepen voor de Koninklijke Marine, Marineblad 2020
Bosscher, De Koninklijke Marine in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, part two pg. 152
Bussemaker, H.Th., Paradise in Peril. Western colonial power and Japanese expansion in Sout-East
Asia, 1905-1941, 2001, pg 227

Update

Greetings everyone,

I hope you enjoyed the April Fools article. After reading Hoffmann's work I have been expressing my artistic tendencies by designing some ships. Creating these was a nice pastime that helped me appreciate the processes that went into designing ships.

In any case, I would like to take this moment to talk about the state of the blog. So far I've been posting multiple articles every Friday. This was never my original plan, I just felt like waiting a week after every post and thus I accidentally formed a schedule. I may stick to this for now, but I probably won't upload multiple posts nor every week as often as before. The reason for this is that I originally tried to rush some content on the blog first; so newcomers wouldn't find it empty if they wanted to read more. I still have plenty of potential content down the pipeline, but I am not yet sure if they fit the scope I'm looking for. Mayhaps that means I'll have to settle for shorter or more 'raw' content.

Regarding the content that I have put out so far, I can't say that I am as enthoustiastic as I had conceived. Since most of it is translating and summarising it doesn't feel as my own labour. Instead I feel like a cheap imposter. I guess it's not far from the truth. Afterall that's just the nature of digging through archives and libraries, but it feels disheartening to think of it this way. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Anyways, expect less frequent content, meanwhile I will try my best to maintain or improve the quality. Untill then.

Yours truly,

Sanglune

April Fools 2024: Dutch Large Capital Ships of World War Two

Edit: 2nd of April 2024

The content of this specific article is an April Fools joke.